Provocative, erudite, and hilarious — the first full-length broadside at
food fetishism to be published in Australia We have become obsessed by food
— where it comes from, where to buy it, how to cook it, and, most absurdly
of all, how to eat it. Our television screens and newspapers are filled
with celebrity chefs, whose authority and ambition range from the small
scale (what we should have for supper) to large-scale public schemes
designed to improve our communal eating habits. When did the basic human
imperative to feed ourselves mutate into such a multitude of anxieties
about provenance, ethics, health, lifestyle, and class status? Since when
did the likes of Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson gain the power to
transform our kitchens and dining tables into places where we expect to be
spiritually sustained? And why do we take seriously the often mindless
prattle of food writers and purveyors? In this masterful polemic, Steven
Poole argues that we're trying to fill more than just our bellies when we
pick up our knives and forks, and that we might be a lot happier if we
realised that sometimes we should throw away the colour supplements and
open a tin of beans.
Author: Steven Poole
Format: Paperback
Number of Pages: 208
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Publication Date: 26 Sep 2012
